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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29790150">Sleeping on the Job</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obscure_ramblings/pseuds/Obscure_ramblings'>Obscure_ramblings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Getting Sauced [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crack, Established Relationship, Fluff and Crack, Food, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, M/M, Mild Gore, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Sleepwalking, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:21:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,300</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29790150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obscure_ramblings/pseuds/Obscure_ramblings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicky has an inconsistent relationship with sleep when they’re on missions. He wants it, it eludes him; it wants him, he evades it. Only during their irregular periods of downtime do Nicky and sleep manage to work out their differences, synchronise and embrace each other properly. But this brings with it a new challenge.</p><p>The slightest disturbance draws Nicky into a semi-aware state, and he employs the extreme stealth tactics he’s honed over the centuries to extract himself from Joe’s koala-like grip. A ripple of red wrongness pulls at him.</p><p>“Joe. It is in here. Stay back and I will destroy the threat, my heart.” Nicky stirs the poker through the bag until it collides with a solid object, the muffled clink of metal against glass bringing Nicky’s attention to point. “Aha! There it is. The interloper. That vile, florid, disgraceful excuse for…” Nicky pauses to swallow down his disgust, unable to utter the word “food” in the context of the atrocity lurking inside the bag. “That thing.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Getting Sauced [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185686</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sleeping on the Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This started off with a fun little 2k story that made me lol and now it’s somehow become a four-part crack fic series!</p><p>Sending thanks to Hyaluronic, who sparked the idea for a follow-up to “A Roamin’ Catholic,” and to the lovely Shatters, for your sweet, supportive comments. You guys rock &lt;3. And this one’s also for <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watthefuckidk/pseuds/Watthefuckidk">Rosie</a>, in lieu of an apology for the loving atrocities I continue to visit upon you in our Tumblr chats. Hope you all like this continuation of the adventures of Sleepwalker Nicky!</p><p>It gets a bit gory in the middle there (coming as a surprise to absolutely no one, this is yet another pun; you are most welcome to scream at me for choosing this phrasing once you understand the context) so feel free to check out the end notes if you want some advance warning about what happens.</p><p>This can be read as a stand-alone if you haven't read or don't want to read parts one and two.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nicky has an inconsistent relationship with sleep when they’re on missions. He wants it, it eludes him; it wants him, he evades it. Only during their irregular periods of downtime do Nicky and sleep manage to work out their differences, synchronise and embrace each other properly. But this brings with it a new challenge.</p><p>The slightest disturbance—an unfamiliar sound, an unexpected contrast of shadow and light moving across the bed, the sense that something is out of place—draws Nicky into a semi-aware state, and he employs the extreme stealth tactics he’s honed over the centuries to extract himself from Joe’s koala-like grip and hunt down the source.</p><p>After the last incident, which occurred a couple of years ago at a safehouse in Moscow, being on a break between missions means Joe’s bedtime routine includes hiding the pistol Nicky usually stashes under their pillow. The last straw was Joe being shot in the thigh—specifically, the inside of his upper thigh, perilously close to other, more delicate areas that Joe knows from unfortunate first-hand experience are particularly painful to regenerate—while trying to wrestle the gun away from his husband, who was bent on destroying with extreme prejudice a can of Chef Boyardee. Booker had carried the offensive item with him for the several thousand miles between Pennsylvania to Russia, then waited until Joe and Nicky had retired for the evening before hiding it in a nook carved into the side of the fireplace.</p><p>Deprived of his pistol, Nicky is now forced to resort to whatever weapon comes to hand when his unconscious mind calls on him to defend his territory from wily invaders. Fortunately, even when not fully awake, Nicky is adaptable. </p><p>Eyes open, seeing yet not truly seeing, Nicky follows the ripple of red wrongness that pulls at him. Their bedroom door opens silently on well-oiled hinges. Nicky enters the hallway, feet shuffling just the slightest bit more than they would were he fully awake. He pauses outside a closed door. No, not here. The next door likewise passes the vibe check and Nicky continues on.</p><p>Proceeding into the lounge, Nicky stumbles a little as one shoulder scrapes against the frame of the open French doors. He rebounds and brings his fists up in a somewhat sloppy fighting stance. Several minutes pass in tense silence. When the invisible foe doesn’t return for a second attack, Nicky’s posture relaxes and he turns around, aquiline nose raising up into the air as he employs all his senses to track that indefinable sense of incompatibility with the otherwise safe, secure surroundings. </p><p>A frisson of unwholesomeness brings him closer to where an innocuous-looking black duffle bag is lined up against the wall, next to a stand holding the fireplace tools: poker, brush, shovel and log lifter. Nicky’s lip curls, baring his teeth in a silent snarl, and his hand reaches out, fumbles across the handle of the brush, discards it and instead picks up the poker. He uses the tip of the instrument to flick open the unzipped flap that hides his nemesis from sight.</p><p>Before he can examine the scene of the crime any further, the warm scent of saffron, ginger and something distinctly <em>Yusuf</em> brushes at Nicky’s awareness and he processes the sound of a yawn at his side. “Nicky. Come back to bed.” Joe’s voice is scratchy with sleep, the slightest hint of a whine pitching it higher than usual.</p><p>“Joe. It is in here. Stay back and I will destroy the threat, my heart.” Nicky stirs the poker through the bag until it collides with a solid object, the muffled clink of metal against glass bringing Nicky’s attention to point. “Aha! There it is. The interloper. That vile, florid, disgraceful excuse for…” Nicky pauses to swallow down his disgust, unable to utter the word “food” in the context of the atrocity that’s swaddled in cloth, lurking inside the bag. “That thing.”</p><p>“Nicky. Look, just let me deal with it. I’ll throw whatever it is in the trash and you can bend that poker over Booker’s stupid head later. But right now, it is 3 a.m. and I want to go back to sleep. With you. In our bed.” Joe’s voice takes on a resigned tone by the end of this statement as Nicky shakes his head violently, using one hand to shuffle Joe backwards, away from the bag.</p><p>Lapsing into the mishmash of centuries-old dialects that forms their own personal language, Nicky grips the poker between his knees to free up his hands so he can pull the dark grey t-shirt over his head. “I will not allow this atrocity to defile your hands, your beautiful hands that create such wonderous artistry, caress me with such love and set my soul ablaze. No, Yusuf, you will stand far away and not let so much as your gaze be tainted by such a crime against nature.”</p><p>Nicky drapes his shirt across Joe’s head and reclaims the poker, holding it as he would his sword, body braced to attack. He draws back his arm, preparing to thrust the tip of the instrument through the bag and destroy his foe once and for all. </p><p>It happens almost in slow motion, Nicky’s senses dulled at the edges, reaction time slow owing to his state of semi-consciousness.</p><p>As the poker moves forward through the air, propelled by the flexing muscles in Nicky’s arm and shoulder, Joe stumbles into its path, fighting to remove the shirt from where it’s become tangled around his face. The force of Nicky’s thrust sends the poker straight into Joe’s side, piercing the smooth, brown flesh. The metal tip glances off his ribcage to descend at a sharp angle and rearrange several organs on its way through to protrude above the hipbone on his other side, leaving him impaled, through and through.</p><p>“What the fuck?!” Joe screams, falling to the floor. He screams again at the jarring impact of the handle of the poker colliding with the floor.</p><p>The yell startles Nicky to full awakeness. He falls to his knees at Joe’s side, long fingers fluttering around the handle of the poker, dazed by the sudden awakening and unsure of how to proceed. </p><p>Joe is swearing up a storm, attempting to curl forward to protect his wounds, but prevented from doing so by the metal bar pinning him in place. Footsteps thunder down the hallway, Booker arriving hot on the heels of Andy and Quỳnh, Nile entering the room just a few steps behind.</p><p>Booker starts laughing his ass off when he sees what’s happened. Nicky yells at him to shut up, voice pitching into an odd roaring screech due to panic, as he attempts to yank the poker back out. The blunt, arrow-shaped head resists his attempts and Joe cries out in protest.</p><p>Quỳnh, eternally cool-headed when confronted with almost any situation not involving water, removes Nicky’s hand from the grip. “Nicolò, go sit by his head. Try to keep him still.” She kneels down to inspect the wounds.</p><p>Nicky, eyes wide with panic, follows her instructions, lifting Joe’s head into his lap and bracing an arm across Joe’s chest to stop him rocking from side to side and jostling the poker further. Nile follows too, sitting next to Nicky and putting a reassuring hand on Joe’s shoulder. </p><p>“Andromache,” Quỳnh says calmy, “Would you bring me my bag?” She gestures to the olive-green pack propped against the far wall of the lounge. When Andy hands it over, Quỳnh unfastens the top and pulls out a rectangle case. Unclipping the snaps, she retrieves the implement inside, unrolls the power cord and hands it to Andy to plug into an outlet mounted in the wall. </p><p>The sound of the saw starting up drowns out Booker’s ongoing chortles and Joe’s harsh pants of pain, interspersed with long chains of, “No, no, no, no, no,” that do nothing to quell Booker’s amusement. Quỳnh grips the poker, nods at Nicky and Nile to hold Joe down, then starts cutting through the metal just below the base of the handle. </p><p>Joe’s scream of pain crescendos as the handle comes free in Quỳnh’s hand and she reaches over him to pull the remaining length of metal through, tossing it on the floor at Joe’s side as it comes free. Nicky is hunched over Joe’s head, murmuring softly in his ear, apologising in every language he knows. Nile makes a face, still new enough to this life to be equal parts fascinated and grossed out by the sight of the more severe wounds that take hours, rather than minutes, to heal. Andy leans casually against the wall, unfazed by the goings-on. She’s seen and experienced it all before, and Quỳnh has the situation well in hand.</p><p>Booker finally gets a handle on his amusement in time for Nicky to rise like an avenging angel, reaching into the bag and picking up the jar that Booker had hidden there. He flings it at Booker’s head, and the Frenchman moves out of the way just in time to avoid getting beaned, but not fast enough to avoid the splatter of glass and sauce that ricochets off the wall behind him.</p><p>“Fucking Prego!” Nicky yells, spittle flying from his lips as he rolls the “r” in “Prego” like a thundercloud. “This has gone too far!” He’s advancing on Booker, fingers making an involuntary grasping motion like they can already feel the texture of the man’s throat squeezed between them, when his momentum is cut off by a single word.</p><p>“Stop.” Joe says it quietly. Nicky immediately forgets his thoughts of revenge and rushes back to sit at Joe’s side. Joe looks up at him with shining dark eyes, dampness collecting still in the corners and spilling over at one side to run down his face.</p><p>“Yusuf, cuore mio, I am so sorry.” Tears cloud Nicky’s own eyes, sorrow at having caused such harm to his love, his life, his Joe. He grasps Joe’s hand and lifts it, presses a kiss against each precious finger, then cups Joe’s hand around the side of his face holding it in place with one of his palms. </p><p>Joe sighs, expression taking on the slightest hint of the usual fondness he directs at Nicky. “Habibi. Give me a proper kiss to ease my pain.” Nicky obliges; of course he does. </p><p>Andy snorts. “He’s fine.” She walks past Booker on her way out the door, clapping a hand onto his shoulder and indicating the mess of blood, viscera, metal shavings and shattered glass overlaid with gloopy red sauce that spans the majority of the lounge floor. “Clean that up.” Her finger swings around to point at Booker’s nose, coming so close his eyes cross as he tries to keep it in focus. “And next time, save it for when we’re in one of <em>your</em> houses. I liked that rug.” She casts a wistful glance at the spread of hand-knotted silk in shades of gold and ochre, which now features a spray of ruby red droplets arrayed across one side, leading to a large splotch of colour near the centre.</p><p>Quỳnh and Nile stand too, Nile shaking her head at Booker and holding her hands up as if to declare she’s washing her hands of the entire encounter. Quỳnh washes her hands too, literally though, with plenty of soap, in the kitchen sink. She hums a quiet tune under her breath, seemingly undisturbed by the incident, finishing up and then packing her power saw back into its case.</p><p>Nicky breaks the kiss with a soft, wet sound and leans down to check the entry and exit wounds on each of Joe’s sides. Seeing they’re already starting to heal over, although it will be hours yet before the last of the tingling buzz eases from Joe’s body, he asks, “Would you prefer to go back our bed, or shall I bring the bed to you?”</p><p>“I would have <em>preferred</em> for you to come back to bed when I asked you to, <em>before</em> all this happened.” Joe’s words are huffy but he’s already raising his arms up to loop around Nicky’s neck.</p><p>Bracing his core to keep the movement as smooth as possible, Nicky stands carefully, one arm tucked under the back of Joe’s legs, the other wrapped across his upper back. Joe nuzzles into Nicky’s neck as they walk past Booker, flashing a middle finger in his direction on the way, and continue on through the French doors to reach their bedroom.</p><p>Uncaring about the state the sheets will be in afterwards, Nicky places Joe on his back the bed and arranges a pillow under his knees to ease the strain on his lower back. He collects a bowl of warm water and some towels and takes them back to their room. Nicky can feel Joe’s eyes tracking his movements as he wipes away the blood and other substances, a sight that never loses the power to render a storm of emotions inside him, regardless of how many times he’s seen Joe heal over the centuries.</p><p>When he finally looks up to meet Joe’s gaze, Nicky finds the familiar warmth of love shining from his dark brown eyes, absent any resentment for Nicky’s part in this fiasco. He opens his mouth to apologise again but before he gets the words out, Joe’s expression changes, turns a little wicked. He reaches up above his head, pausing to hiss in a breath and wince in pain, but persevering until he can flick a finger against the metal clasped around the headboard. “I knew I should have left the handcuffs on.”</p><p>Nicky snorts, trying and failing not to be charmed by Joe’s relentless charisma, as he has so many times over the century. “Joe. You’re an incurable romantic.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Joe gets impaled by Nicky, but not in a fun way (if you want to read about the fun way, though, maybe check out <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29246949">It Gets You Every Time</a>!). There’s a brief description of a fireplace poker going through Joe’s torso, then Quỳnh sawing through the handle of said poker before extracting it. If you want to skip that part, stop reading before “It happens almost in slow motion” and resume at “Booker finally gets a handle on his amusement.” </p><p>Full disclosure: I’ve tried neither Prego nor Chef Boyardee because they don’t sell them here in New Zealand, so for all I know they’re actually really decent products! If you have tried them, let me know if Nicky’s being overly harsh in his food snobbery. Or feel free to drop an emoji, keysmash or short essay in the comments; I love hearing from every one of you!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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